


Painful is the Second Time Around

by Estirose



Category: Power Rangers R.P.M.
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-17
Updated: 2011-03-17
Packaged: 2017-10-17 01:17:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/171401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Estirose/pseuds/Estirose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ten years ago, an attack made one of the Rangers have to grow up all over again. But are you the same person when your memories and circumstances are different? Past m/m relationship mentioned.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Painful is the Second Time Around

**Author's Note:**

> I love playing around with ideas such as "something turns a canon character into a kid for a while". However, this being me, I ended up with "What would it be like for someone to know that they had grown up twice?" I'm not sure this quite tackled the issue, but I hope that it's an interesting read. As noted in the summary, it mentions an m/m relationship, specifically (this being me) Dillon and Ziggy.

"So, um..." His classmate looked at him, biting her lip. "Um, wanna go out with me?"

"Go out with you?" he asked blankly, before realizing what she meant. It didn't help that he wasn't interested in her, not at all. The nearest he'd been interested in someone, it was his parents' teammate Dillon, and that had been at best an embarrassing crush, given that Dillon was a guy and decades older. At least his parents didn't have a problem with guys liking guys, even though he was sure they'd find his crush on Dillon a little odd. "Thanks, but I promised my folks I wouldn't date until I was older." It was a lie, but one that everyone would believe; he was an adoptive Landsdown, after all.

"Oh." She hurried away, tears in her eyes, and he wondered if he'd done it wrong. There wasn't much he could do about it, however. He didn't know what to say and he couldn't be sure that she hadn't asked him out because her parents had told her to.

His own parents had given him a version of the Talk, but it pretty much amounted to "Be careful, because of who you are, people will take advantage of you." Which was not surprising, since his adoptive parents were retired Rangers, his dad's father was Mason Truman, and his mother was a Landsdown. You couldn't come from a more prominent family than he did, even if he wasn't related by blood.

It didn't matter that he was barely fourteen; marriages at his age were becoming pretty common because of the need to repopulate the Earth, and a marriage to him would be a good thing for any girl. Or at least that's what his parents had told him. His sisters, true Truman-Landsdowns, were going to be in the same boat, but he got it worse in some ways because he was a guy and the oldest and so he had more responsibility. And maybe a better chance to inherit.

Which was kind of funny, come to think of it, given what his parents had told him when he turned fourteen. He'd never thought anything odd about his name; there were so many kids named Ziggy, after his parents' teammate who had died, that it was hardly uncommon. He, however, was the original. Ziggy Grover hadn't died or gone missing; he'd been de-aged into a preschooler by a Venjix AttackBot, and neither the AttackBot's destruction nor Doctor K's best efforts had turned him back. The best that his teammates could do, they'd explained, was to give him a new life and a new surname and let him grow up normally, loved by those around him. But because he was the only one that could use the Series Green morpher, they felt he should know about the person he once was, a long time ago.

But he wasn't Ziggy Grover, not anymore. Ziggy Grover was the guy in his parents' stories that told bad jokes and couldn't fight, but saved orphanages full of kids even though he was a criminal that worked for a cartel. Ziggy Truman-Landsdown had grown up with a family that kept him on the straight and narrow, had little sisters to watch over and a gaggle of honorary aunts and uncles to watch over him.

"Ziggy!" someone called, and this time, it was someone that wasn't going to throw him with questions about dating. He smiled as Gemma, his parents' teammate, waited by the school gate. Someone from the team tried to be there every day after school, and apparently, today was Gemma's turn. "How was your day?"

He couldn't remember a time when Gemma hadn't been smiling. He could vaguely remember a time when she and her brother Gem had been inseperable, but not when she and Gem didn't smile. "Okay, I guess," he said, walking past her, but she soon followed, matching his pace.

"Really?" she asked, and he knew he wasn't going to get away with just leaving it there.

"A girl asked me if we'd go out. I didn't feel like it, so I said no."

Gemma was silent for a moment. But only for a moment. "Well, of course not."

He blinked. "Of course not?" Sometimes Gemma could be hard to follow because she thought differently than a lot of people.

"Of course not. You belong with Dillon." She said it so matter-of-factly that he had to stop.

"What?" Had he been that embarrassingly obvious?

"Well, you did. The first time." She looked at him, cocking her head. "You shared a room and did adult things together."

That was news. His parents and the others hadn't mentioned that he wasn't straight the first time around. Probably, like everyone else, he had to be straight for the world's sake, so they didn't say anything.

"Really?"

She nodded. "It would be so sweet if you two got back together!" she said. "I think Dillon's been waiting a long time for you to grow back up."

That... had to be the weirdest thing he'd heard all day, but it was from Gemma, so it might be slightly skewed.

Gemma cheerfully told him more than he ever wanted to know about Ziggy Grover's relationship with Dillon, until Ziggy wanted to hide in embarrassment. He hastily hurried into the house when he got a chance, with Gemma waving him a cheery goodbye despite it all.

He did his homework and prepared dinner, because he was a good cook and it was his turn to do it anyway. His mother came in and peeked into the kitchen. "How did your day go?"

"Well..." He looked at the veggies and decided that they could hold for a few minutes.

"You have that look," she said, folding her arms. "What happened?"

So he told her about the girl and about what Gemma had said.

His mother sighed. "I think Gemma forgets that you're not Ziggy Grover."

Gemma was that way, so he wasn't surprised. "I... I think you should know, I'm not straight, mom."

She raised her eyebrows. "Actually, we figured you'd be that way," she said. "There are certain things you're going to share in common with the Ziggy we knew. That doesn't mean you're obligated to be anything he was. We're not going to ask you to live his life for him."

"I'm... um. I think it worried me because I, um...." He didn't know how to explain his crush on her teammate.

"If that sentence was going to end 'I'm attracted to Dillon' then don't worry. Dillon just attracts people."

He found himself relaxing. "So, I have nothing to worry about." He paused. "And he's not...."

"It was really hard for Dillon," his mom said, "Because he and Ziggy were in love. But you're not that Ziggy, and he knows as well as I do that you're not. He's not expecting you to be his boyfriend just because Ziggy Grover was, once."

That was a relief, in a way. But still, it didn't do anything about his feelings. "Mom... what if I want something with him?"

"Then that's something you'll have to take up with Dillon, but there's something we should talk about first." She sighed. "Let's sit down. Dinner can hold."

"Okay, mom." She was worried, it could hold. He settled down in a chair in the living room, while she settled down in another.

"You remember what we said about the whole relationship thing, Ziggy?" she asked.

"That I should be careful about who I date because of our family." He remembered that part really well.

"That, and that we're never going to make you, Jessie, or Angie marry without your permission. I had enough of that with me." She closed her eyes briefly, then opened them again. "And that in return, we want you to wait until you're adults before you get involved with someone."

He nodded. "Don't worry about that, mom." He didn't want to even think about getting married. Date, maybe.

"There's also something you should know. Scott and I hoped... well." She sighed. "You're getting old enough that it's sometimes hard to remember you're not the Ziggy we lost. Right now, it's mostly Gem and Gemma that make mistakes about that, but..."

Ziggy could understand what she was getting at. "You mean that I have to be careful because he might have a hard time remembering that I'm not Ziggy Grover... at least not anymore." It made sense. He had Dillon's boyfriend's face, but not his memories, personality, or background. It wouldn't be fair to date him, no matter how Ziggy felt.

"Dillon doesn't have very many memories from before he came to Corinth," his mother said. "Memories are precious to him. He does love you... but I don't want him hurt, or you, because he wants you to be the person he lost."

He gulped. "I don't want to be hurt either. Or hurt him."

She gave him a small, pained smile. "That's why I want you to be careful."

"I will," he promised, and promised hard, because the world was full enough of hurt.


End file.
